Video Courtrooms?

July 14, 1995|By WALTER GOODMAN and New York Times News Service

What do William Kennedy Smith and Colin Ferguson, Joel Steinberg and Hedda Nussbaum, the Bobbitts, the Menendez boys and O.J. Simpson have in common? Right. All have starred in hit televised trials, and you can catch highlights of their performances again on Shock Video 2: The Show Business of Crime and Punishment (10:15 p.m. Saturday, HBO).

This edition of America Undercover provides a snappy review of the spreading use of camcorders by police at the scene of a crime - and of other evidence provided by surveillance cameras and videotaped confessions.

It is pointed out, for example, that in the Central Park jogger rape trial, the jury was more impressed by confessions that had been videotaped than by the old-fashioned ones that had been written down by the police.

Perhaps the most problematic uses of video technology shown here are animations and re-creations, those favorites of tabloid television. They have been admitted in a few trials, notably that of the conspirators in the World Trade Center bombing. The program might have inquired more deeply into the potential for fakery.

The hour-long survey does go into the contentious matter of televising trials and proposals to televise executions. The usual pros and cons are trotted out. Among the effects of the camera in the courtroom alleged here: Lawyers are studying reruns of L.A. Law for tips on dramatic presentation. Judges are changing their behavior to improve their images with voters, and witnesses and spectators are sometimes incited to act up.